KERRY IN NIGERIA: ‘TROUBLE FINDING MEANING’ OF LIFE LEADS ‘TOO MANY’ TO TERRORISM.

Analysis true: wallowing too deeply in nihilism can sadly lead to attacking your own country.

WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION: ACT Scores Drop as More Take Test.

This year, 38 percent of test takers met the benchmarks in at least three of the four subject areas tested (English, math, reading and science), which according to ACT shows that they have “strong readiness for college course work.” That’s down from 40 percent in 2015. The percentage of test takers who did not meet any of the benchmarks increased to 34 percent from 31 percent.

Many educators have worried about the lingering (and in some cases growing) gaps among different racial and ethnic groups on the ACT and also on the SAT (average scores for which won’t be released until next month).

The Wall Street Journal adds:

Sixty-four percent of 2016 high school graduates sat for the standardized test, up from 49% in 2012. The jump comes as more states—including Mississippi, Nevada and South Carolina—require districts to administer the tests, in the hope of increasing students’ awareness of college pathways.

Yet as the pool of test-takers better reflects the population of high-school students across America, and not just a self-selecting group of driven young adults for whom college is an automatic next step, it reveals significant shortcomings in their educational achievement.

Somebody should write a book about the poor performance of our K-12 schools.

CATHY YOUNG: Stop calling Nate Parker a rapist: In our current cultural climate, there’s no way for a man to shake the charge of rape, even after he’s found innocent.

The much-anticipated October opening of “The Birth of a Nation,” the story of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion, is now clouded by past rape allegations against director, writer and star Nate Parker. Already, critics are lined up against the film. In a New York Times op-ed, Roxane Gay declared she won’t see it; a black popular culture site refused to review it. A blogger for the Seattle alternative paper, the Stranger, has called for the studio to “pull the plug” on the movie altogether.

The twist: Parker was actually tried, and acquitted, on the rape charge 15 years ago.

For many, it seems, an accusation of rape now equals guilt not only before there is a conviction but even after a not-guilty verdict. This may look just to those for whom “believe the survivors” is an article of faith. But such “justice” will inevitably shatter lives — and may hurt victim advocacy by lending credence to fears that rape accusations are a danger to the innocent.

I’m beginning to think that’s true myself.

CYBERSECURITY: New York Times Says Suspected Russian Hackers Targeted Moscow Bureau.

“We are constantly monitoring our systems with the latest available intelligence and tools,” Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told the newspaper. “We have seen no evidence that any of our internal systems, including our systems in the Moscow bureau, have been breached or compromised.”

Earlier on Tuesday, CNN, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other U.S. security agencies were investigating cyber breaches targeting reporters at the Times and other U.S. news organizations that were thought to have been carried out by hackers working for Russian intelligence.

“Investigators so far believe that Russian intelligence is likely behind the attacks and that Russian hackers are targeting news organizations as part of a broader series of hacks that also have focused on Democratic Party organizations, the officials said,” CNN reported.

The 1980s called, and want their foreign policy back.

ROGER SIMON TALKS WITH THE WEEKLY STANDARD ON NARCISSISM, O.J. SIMPSON, AND THE MOVIE HOLLYWOOD SHOULD MAKE.

Roger’s new book, which hit the streets (and Amazon’s Kindle servers) in June, is titled I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already.

LAW AND DISORDER: Philippines war on drugs: ‘1,900 killed’ amid crackdown.

Ronald dela Rosa was speaking at a senate hearing into the sharp rise in deaths since Rodrigo Duterte became president.

He said police operations had killed about 750 people, but the other deaths were still being investigated.

Mr Duterte won the presidency with his hard-line policy to eradicate drugs.
He has previously urged citizens to shoot and kill drug dealers who resisted arrest, and reiterated that the killings of drug suspects were lawful if the police acted in self-defense.

He also threatened to “separate” from the UN after it called his war on drugs a crime under international law.

An equivalent number of deaths in the US would be about 6,000.

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on bestselling products, updated every hour.

Also, coupons galore in Grocery & Gourmet Food.

Plus, Kindle Daily Deals.

And, Today’s Featured Digital Deal. The deals are brand new every day, so browse and save!

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: The Russians Have Penetrated The NSA. “While many intelligence services have tried to steal secrets from NSA, only the Russians have been able to do so consistently. Kremlin penetration of NSA has been a constant.”

Plus: “In fairness to NSA, the record of our Intelligence Community, indeed our whole government, in counterintelligence is nothing less than dismal. And it’s gotten markedly worse during Barack Obama’s two terms in the White House, with their unprecedented losses of America’s secrets to spies, traitors, and hackers. However, given the importance of NSA to our collective security—it’s the backbone of counterterrorism operations across the Western world, our vital shield against jihadism—it’s important that the agency at last starts getting serious about security. Catching some Russian moles would be a solid beginning.”

MY LATEST CREATORS SYNDICATE COLUMN: This week the International Criminal Court convicted an Islamist terrorist on the charge of destroying cultural heritage sites. Does it matter when radical Islamists believe the conqueror who brings the true religion has the right to erase the false gods?

VA POLL PUTS TRUMP DOWN NINETEEN IN TWO-WAY RACE: “Unfortunately, the Roanoke poll isn’t exactly an outlier,” Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air.

JOHN SCHINDLER: The Real Russian Mole Inside NSA.

The recent appearance on the Internet of top secret hacking tools from the National Security Agency has shined yet another unwanted spotlight on that hard-luck agency, which has been reeling for three years from Edward Snowden’s defection to Moscow after stealing more than a million classified documents from NSA. As I explained, this latest debacle was not a “hack”—rather, it’s a clear sign that the agency has a mole.

Of course, I’ve been saying that for years. It’s not exactly a secret that NSA has one or more Russian moles in its ranks—not counting Snowden. Now the mainstream media has taken notice and we have the “another Snowden” meme upon us.

James Bamford, who’s written a lot about NSA over the decades, has taken up this meme. It should be noted that Bamford is less than a reliable journalist who’s known to embellish sources when not outright fabricating them. That said, there’s no doubt that NSA has a penetration problem.

This shouldn’t be shocking news since the agency has suffered from moles since its birth in 1952. While many intelligence services have tried to steal secrets from NSA, only the Russians have been able to do so consistently. Kremlin penetration of NSA has been a constant.

Read the whole thing.

ASIA PIVOT: North Korea test fires ballistic missile from submarine.

The US Pacific Command tracked the missile over and into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, approximately 300 miles off the coast of North Korea.

This was the first time a North Korean missile entered Japan’s air defense identification zone, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

“This is a threat to Japan’s security and an unforgivable reckless act that significantly damages the peace and stability of the region,” Abe said Wednesday morning.

The launch comes amid the annual joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea, which kicked off on Monday.

In a completely unrelated story, “U.S. to deploy F-35 fighters in western Japan next year,” in one of first overseas deployments of the stealthy attack jets.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Nice church you have there. Shame if something were to happen to it…

BULLYING’S EVOLUTIONARY EDGE: According to the BBC “bullying has been observed in fish.” And “High-ranking spotted hyenas also bully their subordinates.” Indeed — we see that at the DNC. Later: “This seems to suggest a bleak conclusion. If so many creatures bully, perhaps bullying is innate in us, something we cannot escape.” Not necessarily. Ambush. Remember that term. It’s the sensible military man’s solution to bullying.

A bit later:

In more subtle ways, adults also bully. There are many instances of workplace bullying and “psychopathic” bosses, while politicians use “scapegoating” to incite antagonism against minority groups. This approach “creates a common enemy when there are tensions in a society,” says de Waal.

In Chicago and at the White House this is called “community organizing,” except the goal is to incite antagonism among groups –majority, minority, it doesn’t matter.

That’s the violence. Now for the sex:

…bullying helps dominant animals to intimidate their subordinates, and that this has clear evolutionary benefits. It ensures that the dominant individuals have better access to food and to the opposite sex.

All this article’s missing is drugs and rock and roll.

OUCH:

DOMINOS: Italexit Would Make Brexit Look Like a Picnic.

The political fallout from years of highly disappointing Italian economic performance is soon to be tested at the polls. At a yet-to-be-specified date in November, Italy is scheduled to hold a referendum on constitutional reform, mainly involving a proposed streamlining of its two-chamber parliament. With Prime Minister Matteo Renzi committed to resigning should he lose the referendum, the opposition has converted this referendum into a vote of no- confidence on the government.

A prolonged period of political uncertainty is the last thing that a sclerotic Italian economy now needs. Its banking system is burdened with non-performing loans that amount to around 18 percent of its outstanding loans, and its public sector debt has risen to 135 percent of GDP.

Italy’s banks, businesses, and government are saddled with debts in a currency they can’t afford to pay back and aren’t allowed to devalue.

ASHE SCHOW: Differing definitions of rape create opening for misuse.

Different federal agencies define rape differently, and activists looking to make it look like there’s a rape “epidemic” occurring across the country can take their pick of data related to those definitions.

The Government Accountability Office, in response to a request from Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo, discovered the disagreement among federal agencies of what is and is not rape. McCaskill herself is one of the biggest advocates for basing draconian legislation on of a broad definition that results in flawed statistics.

The GAO found “at least 10 efforts to collect data on sexual violence, which differ in target population, terminology, measurements, and methodology.” It also found “23 different terms to describe sexual violence.”

These definitions lead to vast differences in the number of victims of rape and sexual assault. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting system found 84,175 American rape victims in 2011, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — using a much broader definition in a self-reported survey — estimated there were 1,929,000 victims in 2011. That’s a 2,200 percent increase.

While the FBI used actual reported crime statistics based on the legal definition of rape, the CDC used a definition so broad it included things like stolen kisses or merely “unwanted contact” that could have been the result of misread signals.

Of course, those pushing an agenda that sexual assault and rape — especially on college campuses — has reached “epidemic” proportions will use the broader definition, even if it is only backed by a self-reported survey. They use this information to promote bills like the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which insists all accusers be believed and takes steps to ensure accused students have no ability to defend themselves.

Kangaroo courts.

ALL-TOO 21ST CENTURY HEADLINE: British woman, 21, killed in Australian backpackers’ hostel attack by knifeman ‘shouting Allahu Akbar’

We may never know his real motive.

GREAT MOMENTS IN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: TSA agents stop nine-year-old boy with a pacemaker from flying home because ‘some terrorist plots use children fitted with the devices.’

Better dead than rude, to coin a phrase.

HE’S LIKE A BIZARRO WORLD 2000 YEAR OLD MAN RIFF: ‘Borders are the worst invention ever!’ EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker widens rift with European leaders as he calls for open borders.

(Classical allusion in headline.)

HEALTH: Alcohol Companies Pushing Back Against Negative Health Warnings.

At a brewers’ conference this spring, an alcohol lobbyist fired a warning shot in what has become a multimillion-dollar global battle. Public-health officials “want to tell you that alcohol causes cancer,” Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, told the crowd. The industry, she said, was in danger of losing its “health halo.”

For decades, beer, wine and liquor producers have been helped by a notion, enshrined in a number of governments’ dietary advice, that a little alcohol can provide modest coronary and other health benefits.

Rapidly, that advice is shifting as health-policy officials around the world scrutinize their previous advice in the light of research pointing to possible cancer risks.

As far as I’m concerned, the science is settled.

FRANCE VERSUS THE BURKINI: The Economist offers its in-depth analysis. Here’s a long pull quote:

When the French began to debate a ban on the burqa in 2009, for instance, Barack Obama declared in Cairo that Western countries should avoid “dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear” under “the pretence of liberalism”. Some civil-liberties groups within France have tried—but so far failed—to get the burkini ban overturned in the courts. Yet French governments bristle at the notion that their various attempts to defend laïcité amount to intolerance or an infringement of the freedom of expression. They may note that in 2014 the European Court of Human Rights upheld France’s burqa ban. What outsiders fail to understand, the French argue, is that such body wear is not just a casual choice but part of an attempt by political Islamism to win recruits and test the resilience of the French republic. Mr Valls dismisses as naive those who see it as being no different than a wetsuit. The burkini, he says, is part of a “political project”, and complacency plays into the hands of Islamists.

Worth the read.

MINORITY DEMOCRATS. SHOCKING! Minority Democrats Dismiss Trump’s Appeal to Blacks, Hispanics.

HILLARY’S STRATEGY ACCORDING TO POLITICO: Run out the clock. 75 days left in the campaign so the clock’s running. Trump needs to pound away on her corruption and sleaze. If she’s running out the clock (in the basketball sense) I guess that means he needs to run a full court press. But he doesn’t have the press, does he? I don’t think the AP report has cracked Hillary’s Media Privilege. Media Privilege is why Team Hillary thinks it can ride out the scandals by opening pickle jars and cackling.

PAY TO PLAY: “More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.”

Meanwhile, as Ace writes, “Trump is demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to give an independent review of the legality of this — forcing the media to admit the existence of special prosecutors for the first time in Barack Obama’s presidency. See, the concept of a special prosecutor disappeared at the end of the Bush presidency.”

Will it be enough of a springboard for Trump to cut into Hillary’s lead as she appears to be pulling apart from him in the polls?